Ruckus Information

The Rah Cha Cha Ruckus (The Ruckus) is an off-season FIRST Robotics Competition event, loosely based on a Halloween theme. It is a community effort, put together and sponsored by members of several Rochester and Western New York-area FIRST teams. The event is an annual success due to the dedicated efforts of our many volunteers!

This year's event will be held Saturday, October 28th, 2017. Please see the the schedule for details on the day's competition schedule and events.

The event is completely free and open to the public. The event is fun for families and is a great way to see what the FIRST Robotics Competition is all about. Younger students involved in FIRST LEGO League (FLL) and Jr. FLL may find the event particularly enjoyable.

About This Year's Game

This year's game, FIRST Steamworks is a steampunk themed game. Robots try build up steam pressure by scoring fuel into their boilers. Lights on the field indicate steam pressure in the steam tank. Additionally teams using their robots can pick-up gears and pass them to pilots on the air ship to spin up their rotors in preparation for lift-off. At the end of the match, pilots can drop the ropes and robots will climb aboard the airship for lift-off. For an excellent introduction to FIRST Stronghold, check out FIRST's video on the game challenge.

About FIRST Robotics Competition

FIRST Robotics Competition, or FRC, is a robotics competition aimed at inspiring high-school students in the fields of science and technology. The heart of the competition program is working alongside adult mentors to build, in just 6 weeks, a 120 lb. robot to compete in a 3 vs. 3 game. The game is completely new each year.

The competition is run by an organization named FIRST, which is itself an acronym:

For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology

In addition to FRC, for high-school students, FIRST also runs several other programs similar in concept. FIRST LEGO League (FLL) and Jr. FLL, for younger students, is oriented towards small teams of students building and programming Lego-based robots to complete various challenges in competition. FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC) is another program for high-school students, focusing on smaller teams and with an added benefit of lower material and competition cost.